Why bomb Iran

Strikes on Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant could release long-lived radioactive cesium-137 into the Persian Gulf, causing an environmental catastrophe and threatening drinking water supplies for millions of people.

By Stephanie Pappas edited by Andrea Thompson

Just steps from the Persian Gulf, in the Iranian coastal city of Bushehr, lies the country’s only nuclear power plant. Although a fragile ceasefire declared on April 7 halted bombing on Iran, the factory was rocked by nearby missile strikes four times during the conflict, with one strike killing a security guard and damaging an outbuilding.

Given the possibility of a resumption of war, experts are worried. Damage to Bushehr nuclear power plant could have lasting consequences radioactive cesium 137 from spent fuel storage ponds to the Persian Gulf, threatening fishing and the drinking water supply of millions of people. A direct strike could cause a nuclear meltdown. Such a collapse is unlikely to create a fiery atmosphere. Chernobyl-type disastersays Ali Alkis, a nuclear security expert and doctoral student at Türkiye’s Hacettepe University, but it could lead to a slower environmental calamity.

“The most realistic path to a serious accident is not a Hollywood-style explosion but a loss of cooling over time,” says Alkis. “If external power and backup systems are compromised, the reactor core could overheat, potentially leading to fuel damage or meltdown.”

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The Bushehr plant has been in operation since 2011 and has an operational VVER V-446 reactor of Russian design, with a net capacity of 915 megawatts of electricity, which represents approximately 2% of Iranian power.

On March 22, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Michael Waltz refused to promise that the United States would not target the plant, saying “all options should be on the table.” President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to bomb all of Iran’s power plants if the country does not reopen. the Strait of Hormuz to maritime traffic.

The Bushehr reactor is contained within a reinforced concrete and steel liner and has several emergency cooling systems to prevent the core from overheating. If overheated, nuclear fuel can melt, potentially allowing radioactive material to breach the containment system. Spent fuel is also stored in cooling pools inside the reactor, says Scott Roecker, vice president of nuclear materials security at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a nonprofit. If these cooling pools were breached, they too could overheat and create a cascading meltdown that could release radioactive material into the air or the Persian Gulf.

“This is essentially what happened in the case of Fukushimawhere they lost power, then lost cooling, and they melted,” says Roecker.

Cesium-137 is a contaminant of particular concern in spent fuel because it emits powerful and dangerous gamma radiation. Cesium-137 is highly soluble in water and has a half-life of 30 years, Alkis explains. The Bushehr spent fuel ponds have long been a matter of concern, with paper 2021 It was found that a spent fuel fire could spread radioactive fallout to the surrounding coastline, including the city of Ahvaz, which has around 1.3 million people.

Another concern is the risk of water contamination. Since many Gulf countries rely on ocean water desalination for their drinking water, any radioactive contamination of the Persian Gulf could lead to an immediate water crisis. The Prime Minister of Qatar, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani said in an interview last year that Qatar would run out of water in three days if a nuclear accident were to contaminate the Gulf. Cesium can be removed from waterhowever, with methods such as reverse osmosis. This technique was used during the cleanup after the Fukushima accident, so that desalination systems could adapt to handle the contamination.

Whatever the outcome of Bushehr, protecting nuclear power plants in the event of war will likely become increasingly urgent as countries seek to expand nuclear power to meet their climate goals, Roeker says. This is not the first time in recent years that an active nuclear power plant has been caught in the crossfire: the Russia seizes Ukrainian nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia in 2022, similar alarms have been raised regarding a catastrophic accident. “Unfortunately, the Ukrainian precedent makes clear that there don’t seem to be many rules when it comes to attacking nuclear power plants in war,” says Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear energy security at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Beyond the Iranian conflict, he says, it is dangerous to keep nuclear power plants on the table as military targets. Adversaries could try to target the infrastructure around the plants to prevent them from providing electricity or even force them to shut down operations, he adds. “This type of instability increases the risk of an accident,” says Lyman.